EV's Will Change Things

No brakes, transmission fluid change, radiator flush, injector cleaning, exhaust system maintenance? You’re fortunate that you haven’t experienced problems on your 9 year old car. Hondas are pretty reliable. EVs’ brake maintenance is minimal since they use regenerative, one pedal driving. The other things don’t exist on EVs. They don’t have many moving parts like cylinders, transmissions and clutches, valves, rocker arms etc.

Do you ever watch the YouTube videos about The Villages in Florida. Almost everyone has a Golf Cart.

About 80% are Gas rather than Electric.
That tells us something.

Oil is a finite commodity. It is pulled out of the ground and processed. Then it is burned to disappear forever and is only about 25% efficient in delivering power to the wheels. A large majority of the energy is just waste heat. We use oil for many other purposes.
The batteries for EVs can be 85% recycled to recover not only lithium but nickel, cobalt, copper.
Maybe there will be a shift in the Villages as people become more aware of environmental and resource implications.

I can’t get behind the idea of EVs, at least not now.

I have a 2016 Honda Civic that gets almost 40 MPG as tracked on Fuelly. Given the cost to replace batteries and the environmental harm to produce and dispose of said batteries, it’s not worth it, at least not yet.

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The average age of a Villages resident is 71.7 years. So I assume it tells us what the average 72 year-old thinks about charging a battery-operated golf car vs slopping gas into one.

Could it be related to memory problem? :thinking:

If gas remains at $4.50/gal and you are an average driver and you get 40 mpg, and you drive your Honda for another seven years, you will spend $9,450 for fuel. My XC40 EV will cost me $3,276 for the same distance. Expected maintenance and repair costs for a your Honda Civic for the next 7 years is approx. $7,000. The XC40’s is less than $500.

If you traded in your Honda Civic today on a Volvo XC40 Recharge, your net cost would be $33,500, (61,000 - 20,000 - 7,500 = 33,500.) Your net cost for the next seven years of driving would be $37,276 and in 2029 you would own a 2022 XC40 Recharge.

If you keep your 2017 Civic until 2029 your net cost for the same mileage would be $16,450 ( 9,450 + 7,000.) Your net cost in 2029 would be $16,450 and you would own a 2017 Honda Civic.

If you have only one car in your household it’s probably too early to go to an EV. But if you have two cars it may be a good time to look at an around-town EV. And there’s the performance thing: the Volvo does 0-60 in 4.5 sec vs 8.2 for the Civic The Civic driver must wait an excruciating 16.3 sec to see 1/4 mile go by while the XC40 crosses the quarter-mile mark in 12.9.

Since Honda’s cultural roots are embedded in the business of building and selling internal combustion engines I think they will be among the last to join in the EVolution… :upside_down_face:

That’s one theory: Here’s another,

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Apart from the dire consequences from continuing to burn fossil fuels, not everyone is on board with the “infinite oil” theory. At the end of the article is this: Skeptics say that while traces of abiotic hydrocarbons may exist, little data support the idea of economically meaningful deposits. “Companies have been looking for oil for 100 years. If all this abiogenic stuff is there, why haven’t they found it?” asks geochemist Geoffrey Glasby, who spent nine months investigating the matter for a 2006 review paper in Resource Geology. He concluded the totality of the evidence did not support the concept.

There is a difference between a few parts per million and tens of millions of barrels,” says Chevron geologist Barry Jay Katz, another skeptic. He notes that the theory fails to explain the wide variety of biological compounds found in oil from different parts of world. Oil from younger rocks contains compounds linked to flowering plants, but oil from older rocks formed before flowering plants existed contains only more primitive organic compounds.

“If you buy the theory, it says you will never run out of oil; there is an infinite supply, and don’t worry about anything,” says Katz. “That is not the way it seems to be working.”

Regardless of how oil is formed, it still produces CO2 into our atmosphere.

And THAT ain’t a good thing, it’s a bad thing cause it doesn’t go away for 300 to 1,000 years. We’ve only been burning the stuff in any significant quantity for a hundred years and we’ve increased atmospheric CO2 from 280 to over 400ppm, today it’s 418ppm. Daily CO2

Higher sea levels are just one of the problems the earth-bound population will have. You ain’t seen nuthin yet when it comes to violent weather, melting permafrost and a wrecked global agricultural system. When the effects of latency makes it’s presence known it’ll get everyone’s attention.

Last time our atmosphere was at 400ppm of CO2 the oceans were 10-15’ higher and dry land was not nearly as hospitable as it is today.

I bought my EV Bolt 10 months ago for about $25K. My net energy and maintenance savings so far is about $2,100 from my old car that got about 30 MPG and I live in a part of the country were gas and electricity prices are relatively inexpensive. It’s by far the most fun car I have ever driven, plus it is so quiet. I love it! Also, it’s so nice not to have to worry about finding a place to fill up every few days. I just plug it in at home and I’m good to go on my commute. I drive about 20K miles/year. If lithium-metal batteries pan out, it could be truly game changing with a 15-minute charge time to refill a car.

Also, it’s so nice not to have to worry about finding a place to fill up every few days.

That’s never been a worry I’ve ever had, since I drive by gas stations dozens of times over the course of a tank of gas. This is by far the stupidest talking point of the pro-EV point of view.

I have had to worry about finding a place to fill up before I run out of gas when I’ve overestimated the amount of gas I had left or underestimated the distance to the next station. It seems like that would be more likely to be an issue with an EV, since charging stations are fewer and farther between than gas stations (currently, at least). Though perhaps an EV could be better about predicting when you will run out.

EV’s are perfect for people with set commutes like me. If I forget to charge, I can plug in somewhere with the 110V plug into a regular reciprocals. That will give you a few extra miles. The app reminds you to plug in each night before bed so it’s hard to forget. Also, I can’t turn on my Bolt with it still plugged in so I won’t forget that I have it plugged in if I try to drive off. I have 200 miles at least of interstate travel per charge (probably around 250 with city driving) so it’s not like I’m ever sweating about running out of miles. They also clearly post your miles on your dash so you know exactly how much you have left.

They aren’t ready yet for vacation travel or super long distance travelers. We will get there though. With gas engines sometimes I would look down only to realize that the gas light was on and then I’d be searching for the nearest station. Also, it seems like my gas tank was always running low when I was running late in the morning to work. That is all a thing of the past for me now. It’s been the best purchase decision I’ve made in a long time.

That’s little harsh ratbertk. You might change your attitude if you had experienced the convenience of parking your car in your garage and plugging your car in every night. I guess never having to look for a gas station is something a person must experience to appreciate.

Plugging in your car at home doesn’t have a tenth of the potential to be frustrated with the many distractions like finding, waiting and fueling gas cars. That’s especially true in times of gas shortages and emergencies.

That’s little harsh ratbertk.

Maybe, but I stand by it. “Not having to find a place to fill up every few days” is a stupid reason to buy an EV. Whoever is frustrated by finding, waiting (why would you need to do that?), and fueling a vehicle should probably not be driving at all. It’s not like gas stations with available pumps are hard to find. I suppose gas shortages would be a different story, but I wasn’t old enough to drive in the '70s, so I don’t really have a frame of reference on that topic.

I can see how it might be convenient to charge at home in the garage. At least until you want to use your garage for a project for a few days or weeks, and so need to park outside. Or if you are renting a house, and don’t want to put in the expense to install the charging hardware. Or if you have an apartment or condo without a dedicated parking space at all. One nice thing about gas is there is no commitment to the gas station or where you park.

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Until the grid crashes. :open_mouth:

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Most EV owners do the bulk of their charging at home. It’s a lot less expensive than charging stations and also “nice to be able” to have that convenience while paying half the price. :slightly_smiling_face:

You can still use your garage for projects and charge your car. The charging cables are long enough to charge a parked car outside the garage and they coil up when you are charging a car close to the charger.

The number one reason I bought electric is because it made economical sense for my situation—over time my brand new bolt will be WAY cheaper than a new or a couple/few year old gas car. It’s also nice to have all of the other pluses like less maintenance and not needing to pull into a gas station. I also love innovation and advances in technology, and did I mention how fun electric cars are to drive? Change can be hard to accept but for me the electric car was a huge step up with little to no compromise for my situation.

I agree, I’ve owned lots of cars, from pokey diesels to muscle cars and a Porsche 911. My Volvo EV is more fun to drive than any of them.

Volvo is testing wireless charging in a live city environment.

I can imagine a future with stuff like this being commonplace. Heck… they may even have sections of highways where you can charge your EV while you drive to work!

Details: Volvo Cars tests new wireless charging technology - Volvo Cars Global Media Newsroom

When it does are you going to get a bucket and bail gas thru the filler hole at your local gas station?